Return to the incident list: Incident List Hand into prop while warming up my motor! PPG Type: Type of Injury:

Pilot Details

Age: 32 Weight: 208 Gender: Highest rating held at the time of the incident: Pilot experience level:

Gear Details

Wing Brand: Model: Dudek hadron 24m Size: Paramotor Frame: Fly products S4 Ryder with

Incident Details

May 5, 2014 Location of the incident: , Type of Incident:

Guys I’m writing this reiterate the dangers of starting your motors on the ground. My incident happened very fast, I was the first of 3 pilots to arrive at our local LZ. I unloaded my gear, laid my wing out and was ready to warm my motor up. The other pilots arrived. I started my motor, one of the newer pilots came right over my right shoulder. I asked him to backup. That’s when things happened quick and turned bad.. My throttle was down near my thigh as he turned away from me his leg/hip hit my throttle making my unit go to full power. As the unit lunged at me my first reaction was to catch the unit, that’s when my hand met the prop! My injuries were pretty bad including losing about 2″ of my middle finger the tip of the index as well my whole thumb being cut off but luckily reattached in surgery. Moral of the story is make sure your not interrupted or distracted while starting your motor things can happen in a split second that could cause serious injury like it did to me! Now I’ve gotta live with this for the rest of my life when it could have been avoided if I would have just shut my motor off as soon as I felt distracted or not comfortable with the other pilot being so close to me! Fly safe guys.

Flight Window: Wind Speed: Type: Phase of Flight: Type of Injury: Collateral Damage: Analysis of the incident (additional input by the incident investigation team): Photos (if available):

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